This isn't a simple case of mob cruelty. Iain Duncan Smith,
formerly the leader of the Conservative Party, is the Work and
Pensions Secretary in the UK government, and responsible for
benefit cuts that went into place yesterday.

To critics of the cuts, this was gross hypocrisy. Duncan Smith
earns £1,581.02 ($2401) a week at present— £225 ($342.79) a
day after tax — so if he were actually forced to live on $11.50 a
day that would be a drop in income reduction of 97%.

While the petition carries no legal weight, it has now been
picked up by almost all of the major news outlets in the UK, and,
as Sky News puts it,
the petition is piling pressure on Duncan Smith.

In fact, there is a real, though perhaps distant, possibility
that Duncan Smith could accept the challenge — other politicians
have done so in the past. The Guardian notes that Conservative MP
Matthew Parris
struggled to survive on £26.80 a week in 1984, when he lived
in a bedsit for a week for a TV show.

However, the petition asks that Duncan Smith live on the sum for
"at least one year", a big commitment for anyone, though one that
would replicate at least some of the long-term budget problems
people on benefits have.

(Alex Hern of the New Statesman has
points out, however, Duncan Smith could probably live pretty
comfortably on £53 if the task allowed him to make use of his
current assets — he currently lives rent-free in a multi-million
dollar Tudor
mansion courtesy of his father-in-law.)

The outrage has drawn one minor concession from the UK
government, however. Greg Clark, the Financial Secretary to the
British Treasury,
admitted today that "I think it’s an incredible struggle to
[live on £53 a week] and I think any MP, anyone earning the
comfortable wage that an MP has would certainly struggle."